/ The Big Easy
A Sermon by Shaun Seaman
December 6, 2015

Every year, the church gives me 2 weeks called study leave. It can be time going to a conference or a workshop or using the time to prepare, to study, to reflect. I spent last week at the 2015 Leadership Seminar put on by the Ecumenical Stewardship Center and held in New Orleans. There were two main speakers. Dr. Kelly Johnson is a professor from the University of Dayton and some of her work has focused on Stewardship and Poverty in Christian Ethics. How as Christians, we have a responsibility to address the desperate poverty in which so many live. The ‘haves’ of this world living their lives, knowing there are so many ‘have not's is simply unjust. As children of God, how are we going to address this crisis?

Shane Claiborne, the second conference speaker, looks like someone who spent the last few years begging and living on the streets. In a way he has. Shane also has a Ph.D. He has lectured at Princeton, Duke, and Brown University, and all around the world. He spent time in Iraq, Lebanon, and in India working alongside Mother Theresa. He is in his early 30’s. In his early 20’s he and some friends bought 10 deserted homes for $1.00 each in the most crime ridden, impoverished ghetto of Philadelphia. They fixed up the homes and have established a community for the ostracized and marginalized people in that area of town. He is the founder of a faith based movement called The Simple Way. They share their faith, their income, they provide education and food and shelter for people in the area. His aim is to follow Jesus and do His work with the poor. He seeks peace and justice for all. He wants to change the world. There is no need for anyone to go hungry. His life is dedicated to the things of Christ.

There is so much that I want to share with you from this past week. It has the potential to have a great spiritual impact on all of us. I will do that in some depth early in the new year, but today I want to share with you just 4 points.

Mahatma Ghandi said that, “The world has enough for everyone’s need, but not enough for everyone’s greed.”

The 1st point is this - Unfortunately the 20/80 rule that we often apply to the church has application to the world.

20% of the world’s population controls 80% of the world’s wealth. They also possess 80% of the world’s education, food, opportunity! In Exodus 1 we learn about the Israelite slaves, who barely had enough to eat, being treated with brutality, forced to build brick storehouses for Pharaoh's excesses. Not much has changed.

Point #2. The Concept of Blessing. We hear it all the time. Bless you. God bless you. What a blessing! What is a blessing?

According to the presenters this past week, a blessing is anything that moves you closer to the heart of God, anything that helps you to become even more rooted in the Lord, anything that reveals something of God to you.

Shane told the story of some wonderful philanthropic person who wrote a cheque for 1 Million dollars to Mother Theresa to support her work in India. Upon receiving the huge cheque, Mother Theresa turned to the individual and said, “Thank you for this, but I had hoped for more.” The philanthropists response - “I don’t understand.” “I wanted your heart.” Sometimes writing a cheque is easy. Even a cheque for a million dollars for some! Mother Theresa knew that God wants our heart. Where the heart is, there too will be your treasure. Do we give because we love God and we desire to honour Him and do His work? Or is our motivation from some other source….ego, status, prestige, guilt…. If our hearts our rooted in love, if we do strive to cultivate the heart of a servant, the heart of Christ, faithful expressions of our love will come from that by giving generously and unselfishly, even joyfully, of our time, talent, and treasure. If we are not rooted in Christ, we are as 1st Corinthians tells us, a noisy gong, a clanging symbol.

The 3rd point - Justice. Our neighbours to the south, the people I met last week, they did not own slaves. They did not own plantations and force their slaves to work under inhumane conditions for little or no reward. Nor did their parents. But perhaps their grandparents did, or their parents.

Neither you nor I forced our aboriginal people off their land with no compensation. We did not go and haul their children off to residential schools and strip away their cultural identity. Neither did our parents. But our grandparents or their parents might have.

There is a ripple effect that comes with any action. We are guilty by association to the atrocities of those who have gone before. We are some distance from their actions, but we are connected. How many of us got informed or involved in the Truth and Reconciliation Commission? For the opening and even the closing, I did not participate. I did not understand how it has anything to do with me. I do now.

We cannot re-write history, but we can learn about it and be determined not to repeat it. If we are serious about justice, we need to become instruments in the healing process for those who still bear the scars.

It is not difficult to find out where and how goods are produced. We need to find out if it is ethical? Are the workers being paid a fair wage? Are their working conditions healthy and safe and humane? Are the workers children? Have the people who have made the clothes we wear, the cars we drive, the food we eat, the technology we use been treated fairly and compensated appropriately? We can find out these things and support systems that are good and healthy and refuse to support those that are not and work toward correcting them! It has not been that long that we have learned the term Fair Trade. It applies to more than just our coffee.

The prophet Micah calls us to seek justice. Christ exemplified that in his daily living. Are we doing that?

John 15:12 “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you.” I do not call you servants any longer, I have called you friends……

My 4th and final point - The term Net Worth is often used. What is her or his Net Worth? Typically the response is given in dollars.

Think about this - Child of God. Rooted in Love. The heart of a servant. Loved by God. Blessed. Someone seeking justice for all. Why would we ever even consider that someone’s Net Worth is about one’s wealth? Blessed by God. Gifted so abundantly by God. Living as a disciple – striving to follow Jesus – taking care of one another. Is that not your net worth?

How shallow and empty to measure the worth of any individual by their access to wealth!

Finally, one afterthought -

We are in Advent and it is the Sunday of Peace. We are preparing to celebrate the birth of our Lord. Is that what your life looks like these days? If someone were to observe you for a week, would that become evident…that you are preparing for the birth of Love? The activity in the malls and the shopping centers don’t seem to communicate that message. Something else must be going on because the parking lots are full and people are spending all sorts of money on all sorts of things. Is this what Preparing for the child of God to be born looks like?

When it comes to:

-being rooted in Love

-our call as friends of Jesus

-reflecting the light of God’s love into the lives of others

We have much about which we need to give prayerful thought and consideration. This Advent might just be, a time for change.

Amen